For defenders of the Electoral College as a mode of selecting the President of the United States, the worst-case scenario happened in the election of 2000. Because of the idiosyncrasy of the Electoral College, the loser in the popular vote won the presidential election. The inevitable calls for an end to the Electoral College began immediately after the election with Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) leading the charge.

Critics of the Electoral College maintain that it is archaic, a constitutional appendage left over from America’s founding when communication and transportation made direct election of the president impractical. Why, they ask, should the United States keep such a relic in the information age?

Critics of the Electoral College insist that it is undemocratic since it is possible for the winner of the popular vote to lose the Electoral College majority and therefore be defeated in the election. What accounts for this electoral oddity is the winner-take-all provision of the Electoral College. In most states the candidate who gains a popular majority wins all of its Electoral votes. If a candidate wins some states by large margins, but loses many others by small majorities, it is possible to be the victor of the popular vote while being defeated in the Electoral College, which was former Vice-President Al Gore’s fate in his bid for the presidency.

On the other hand, advocates of the Electoral College point to the need to represent small state interests. Since the number of Electors in each state is determined by the number of Senators and House members in Congress, small states gain the advantage of the two Senate seats that each states is guaranteed by the Constitution no matter the population. Without the Electoral College, candidates probably would ignore rural and less-populated areas and focus their campaigns in voter rich cities with strong media markets.

Defenders of the Electoral College often wrap themselves in the authority of America’s Founders, arguing that the Electoral College had a role in protecting the nation from the evils of direct democracy. Representative government, they insist, is better than direct democracy.

On this point, those who support the Electoral College are wrong.

The Electoral College was never intended to thwart the popular will. The Framers of the Constitution supported the Electoral College system for a variety of reasons, but none of those reasons included thwarting the public will. Even Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father least enamored with the merits of democracy supported direct popular election of the President at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. But even if the intent of the Founders was to create a representative shield against popular opinion, the Electoral College never worked as intended. By 1800, Electors were no longer representative or “deliberative” but were tied to the popular vote in their states.

What few commentators have failed to point out is the Electoral College has actually worked BETTER than it was intended – different, but better.

The winner-take-all provision, the very one that caused the confusion in the election of 2000, maintains America’s two-party system. Voters do not like to throw their votes away, and when they realize that a vote cast for a third party candidate might have the result of electing a person whose views they oppose, they tend to actually cast their vote for one of the two main candidates – the one they dislike the least. This is exactly what happened in the last days before the 2000 election when public opinion polls show that Ralph Nadar’s supporters moved to Gore in large numbers. It is surrounding the calculation that voters make as a result of the winner-take-all provision that keeps America’s loosely organized parties viable.

Without the winner-take-all provision of the Electoral College, America would have a multiple-party system, since there would be less reason to support one of the two major party’s candidates. Since the President is the only nationally elected official, it is the prize of the winning the presidency that keeps the two parties from splitting first into regional parties and then into ideological or interest-based parties. It is likely that, without a two-party system at the presidential level, the country would break down to its constituent interest groups. There would be a women’s party, an environmental party, a business party, a men’s party, a Southern party, and on and on. The United States would become ungovernable. The American political landscape would begin to resemble Italy’s where there have been 52 governments – or executives – since World War II.

People often grumble that America’s two parties are too much alike. But the public also complains that politicians are unwilling to compromise and act for the good of the country. Imagine how much bickering would take place if we had 40 parties instead of two.

Keep but Reform the Electoral College: A Possible Way

There is a simple solution to the problems created by the Electoral College. The elections of 1876, 1888, and 2000 – elections in which the popular vote winner lost the election were all close, decided by five Electoral College votes or less. But if the winner of the national popular vote were awarded eleven Electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, the extra eleven votes (twice the five-vote-margin plus one for good measure) would assure that the popular vote victor would also win the Electoral College vote and become President. The eleven would be too few to “nationalize” presidential elections, and the same dynamics that keep the two-party system intact would prevail.

The additional eleven votes is twice the Electoral votes plus one of the Electoral votes would have settled the disputed elections of 1800, 1876, 1888, and 2000 in favor of the popular vote winner. The eleven extra votes would not have settled the election of 1824, but that presidential race had six major candidates. In fact, the example of 1824 indicates the problem of electing a president if a multiparty system were adopted in the United States.

Problems might arise when the national vote count is very close. It may be necessary to modernize the way citizens cast their ballots, making ballots more uniform throughout the country. But, these moves toward standardization may have occurred inevitably as new technology makes counting votes fairer and efficient.

A simple modification of the Electoral College will cure its major defect without ruining its virtues. In a country as large, diverse, and multicultural as America, only a two-party electoral system can insure moderation and competence. The United States should not allow an institution that has helped make its democracy strong fall prey to the heated voices of partisanship.